There was an unspoken moment of understanding between them, Bains could swear, while in the background the flames curled and writhed, sending thick black clouds of smoke to obscure his new view of the stars.

They'd tried cutters and explosives, locksmiths and comp scans, everything that they could think of yet there it remained. Obstinately locked. Tyran touched the surface of what appeared to be a flimsy wooden door and found it vibrating slightly. The city-machine was still stuck in a state of immobility despite their most strenuous efforts, so the vibration was nothing to do with their motion.

202.The Kapoor girl appeared from the shadows and Peron shoved her with such force that she came skidding across the grimy floor to his feet. He watched her for a minute writhing in pain, her hands still cuffed to her back and her face now grazed and b.l.o.o.d.y.

'Stand up,' he snarled.

But she could only lie there feebly, breath coming shallow and frail.

Peron stepped forward and wrenched her to her feet. She winced and cried out in more pain. While Peron held her tight, Tyran pushed his face close to hers. Her eyes were unfocused, but she was watching the blue box behind him with what he could swear was a degree of yearning.

'What the h.e.l.l are are you people?' he growled. you people?' he growled.

She didn't, or couldn't, respond.

'Get this thing open,' he ordered.

'Can't,' she whispered.

'What?'

'Can't. . . Only the Doctor. . . '

'Only the Doctor?'

'Key. . . ' Her voice was nothing but a breath.

He reached out and fingered the chain around her neck, and she pulled back, her eyes abruptly more alert.

His face swam about in the thick goo in front of her. She felt him trying to tug the key from round her neck and instinctively tried to pull away. In response she got a greatly bloated leer.

'So only the Doctor has a key, does he?' The words swam about in her head.

She tried to grasp them one at a time. They were wriggling fish.

There was a sharp scratch at her neck and the key came free. The Doctor had told her. . . the key would only work for her. . . ' Only you. . . Only you. . . ' he'd said. ' ' he'd said. ' Only Only you. . . you. . . ' His face filled her head. His voice filled her head. ' His face filled her head. His voice filled her head. Only you. . . Only you. . .

The man tried the key in the door. He pushed and twisted and slammed it and. . . Only you. . . Only you. . .

Then the man turned back, his face full of rage. He threw the key to the floor and she saw his mouth working with fury. . . His eyes were wide and wild. . .

His face was red and raging. . . She saw him reach behind her. Her head was full of noise thick as treacle. . . Stodgy and sickly sweat sound. . . It oozed through her brain. . . The words now had gone and there was only glutinous sound. . .

203.

A gun. . . He waved it at her. . . His face still furious. . . The Doctor's voice came back, bursting on the surface of the thick noise in her head, a bubble of unexpected clarity. . .

Only you. . .

The gun jerked. Went off. Sound stopped.

The girl collapsed at his feet and Peron plunged to check her carotid. She shook her head, letting the body fall lifeless to the floor. Tyran could only stare in numb silence. What had he done? Peron was standing again, taking her rifle back from him, and uttering confirmation of what he already knew.

'She's dead.'

Corporal Vanburgh was getting bored. He had no idea what he'd done to deserve such a G.o.dawful post, but he'd been here over an hour now and the couple in the isolation room had hardly even moved. They sat chatting on little stools in the middle of the room, the woman with her back to him and the man occasionally glancing to meet Vanburgh's eye.

There had been some activity up to about half an hour ago, people pa.s.sing by, people to talk to, small distractions to take his mind off the monotony. But in the last half an hour he hadn't seen a soul and now his patience was wearing thin.

Then he caught it out of the corner of his eye. The incubator had appeared from nowhere. One minute the corridor was empty, he could swear, and the next the thing was there. He did a double take and simply stared at it for a few moments before his brain alerted him to go and check it out.

As he approached he saw that it contained a sleeping baby. A small, naked thing with arms outstretched and eyes closed. He stood in front of it, peering into the nearby empty room where the equipment must have come from. There was n.o.body about. The room was empty.

'h.e.l.lo?' Vanburgh tried.

n.o.body.

As he reached out to push the incubator back into the room, his hands pa.s.sed through the plastic sides and Vanburgh was taken momentarily off guard. What happened next was too fast and puzzling for his mind to grasp. The woman who was sitting in the next room talking just a second ago, the woman whom he'd been watching closely for the last hour who hadn't moved a muscle, was standing in front of him smiling. Her hand came up to meet his face and swift oblivion gushed up from nowhere to engulf him.

204.After killing the girl, Tyran had forced a hasty retreat back to his office. His lair.

He poured himself a quick whisky and slumped in his seat at the head of the desk. A supernatural silence and stillness permeated the room. Although the lights and comps were returning to normal, there was no sign at all of the city-machine getting on its way again. He'd received engineering reports that spoke of immense physical failures caused by a barrage of infinitesimal substructural glitches. Gears ground in places to dust. The glitches had come from nowhere.

No traceable path. The equivalent of a man giving himself major body traumas by simply believing on a whim that he'd sustained them.

Major body traumas. . .

Tyran experienced a startling instant memory of Danes's rising body. Blue lips speaking. Cold air emerging from already dead lungs.

He tried to take a gulp of whisky, but as he lifted the gla.s.s he realised with a small cold shock just how much his hands were shaking. Slamming the gla.s.s back on to the desk, he then realised how cool the room had abruptly become.

Then he saw the wall panels. Darkening as something surged with swift fluidity down the other side. Thick liquid, like oil. It came from above, in the middle of the ceiling, the centre of the huge web design. The darkness oozed with a terrifying rapidity down towards the floor all around him.

There was a dripping sound, and he found great globs of thick red liquid dribbling from above on to his desk, quickly creating a spreading pool that surged outward, stretching with terrifying speed towards him. He found suddenly that he was frozen, completely unable to move his hands as the fluid flowed around them, oozing cool and viscous between his fingers.

Then there was movement and he saw them with a gasp of sheer horror. The people sitting around the desk. Crowds of corpses that glared at him out of sightless sockets-for-eyes. Among them he recognised the Kapoor girl and the creature he'd killed earlier. Then he recognised others. One after another, flash recollections of people he'd killed. People who'd got in his way. Barriers he'd overcome in his drive for the top.

More bodies were emerging through the walls. Looming like ghosts until they were solid. Many he didn't even know. The room was full of milling dead people, pa.s.sing around and between and gazing at him from out of dark holes.

Many he didn't even know. . .

He'd reviewed the reports from Gildus Prime. There were immense hazards from the local anomaly, but the phenomenon came and went without warning. from the local anomaly, but the phenomenon came and went without warning.

PlanetScape were plotting to undermine his operations. There were boardroom 205 205 manoeuvres to take down the upstart WorldCorp and leave the company no more than scattered stardust. So Tyran saw his chance. He made changes to the engineering reports and people who had worked on them simply vanished. The reports than scattered stardust. So Tyran saw his chance. He made changes to the engineering reports and people who had worked on them simply vanished. The reports were published without mention of the anomaly. PlanetScape, exercising its financial might to acquire key people in Earth Central, took the contract. The rest. . . were published without mention of the anomaly. PlanetScape, exercising its financial might to acquire key people in Earth Central, took the contract. The rest. . .

The rest was history. . .

He felt hands sliding down over his shoulders, stroking his chest. Palms still fixed to the desk, he flicked back his head expecting to find Carly, but the real shock was yet to come.

'Oh Christ,' he heard himself say as the breath burst out of him in tight spasms.

The woman gazed at him out of sightless eyes. He knew instantly who she was. The face he'd never forgotten. The first person he'd ever killed. He'd sucked out her mind for leaving him dead. And now she was back. Returned from the grave.

'Mother. . . '

'That wasn't a nice thing you did,' she said. Her breath smelled like earth.

'What you did was worse,' he told her, appalled at the thick sound of fear in his own voice. 'Leaving me to die in the gutter.' own voice. 'Leaving me to die in the gutter.'

'I told them where to find you,' she said, her hands sweeping around his chest in a perverted, sensual motion, leaving thick trails of blood in their wake. in a perverted, sensual motion, leaving thick trails of blood in their wake.

'You abandoned me!' he spat. 'The rats got me first. I was lucky to live. While you went chasing the sun. Digging for gold. You're nothing but a prost.i.tute, you you went chasing the sun. Digging for gold. You're nothing but a prost.i.tute, you callous, evil b.i.t.c.h.' callous, evil b.i.t.c.h.'

Trying to yank his hands from the desk, he found them still fastened firm.

'Qualities to die for,' she purred, her hands rising higher until he could feel her damp fingers wrapping round his neck, 'in such a material world.' damp fingers wrapping round his neck, 'in such a material world.'

The fingers were getting tighter. His ragged breath rasped and gurgled through his constricting throat. The dead people watched in gruesome fascination. his constricting throat. The dead people watched in gruesome fascination.

'Qualities,' she said, 'you inherited from me.'

Domecq had been charged with a task. It was an elementary thing, and he brought with him all the authority of Earth Central to help him carry it out.

But events on Ceres Alpha were getting swiftly out of hand, and Domecq sensed authority slipping through his fingers in the face of Gaskill Tyran's bloodl.u.s.t.

Now, he'd learned from his sources, the man had murdered the girl, having failed to get inside the mysterious blue box in the hold. The box may well have contained vital clues to the mystery of the creatures. They were obviously 206dealing here with a number of brand-new technologies. But, once again, Tyran had destroyed his only means of moving forward in his investigations.

Barging into Tyran's office unannounced, Domecq found Tyran slumped alone at the head of his desk. His head shot back as Domecq came in, and Domecq found his eyes full of dread fears, dark and manic and haunted.

'Oh Christ, did you see them?' Tyran demanded, his voice a terrified whisper.

Domecq shook his head in puzzlement. 'See who?'

Eyes flashing about the empty room, Tyran gasped for no reason at all, then seemed to come to his senses, gathering his thoughts and waving Domecq over to the desk. He looked drawn and tired, black eyes deep with shadow. For a moment, Domecq saw him as a small figure behind the far-too-huge desk. Just a man, whose power wasn't as absolute as he had imagined.

'I've submitted a subether report,' Domecq informed him.

Tyran smiled a crazy kind of smile and simply pointed to the gla.s.s in front of him.

'Join me,' he said, voice still plainly quivering. 'In a drink to absent friends.'

The chopper bounced through the winds with near-zero visibility and Bains sat with his fingers crossed. He checked his harness for the fiftieth time. The b.u.mpy ride didn't seem to bother the children. They were huddled together again on the floor, arms entangled for mutual support.

After the weapons had exploded killing the troops outright, the Doctor had bulldozed them all back into the chopper and insisted they get back to the city.

As soon as it was learned that the troops had been killed, there would be more sent after them. A bigger force with bigger weapons, and the children were too young to understand, the Doctor said.

'If they're harmed they'll lash out. We've got to get them safe. Away from the military.'

'Why go back to the city if you want to get them away from Tyran and his nutters?' Bains had asked, nonplussed at the Doctor's perverted logic. 'You're walking right into his hands.'

The Doctor had merely smiled one of his mysterious smiles that Bains was fast beginning to find more than a bit irritating.

'I know a place we can find sanctuary,' he told Bains enigmatically. 'We need some time to calm the situation. I can get the children safe and bargain with Tyran.'

'Bargain with Tyran?' Bains had bl.u.s.tered. 'You must be joking.'

207.

'It's our only chance. You saw back there what these children are capable of.

Their powers are growing all the time. If we're not careful this thing will end up in a bloodbath.'

The chopper dipped abruptly and for a second Bains thought they'd lost control, but when he looked out through the screen he found he could see little yellow pinp.r.i.c.ks of light.

'Where are we?'

The Doctor was maintaining a stationary position, running scans on the forward sensors, somehow managing to keep them stable in the face of the buffeting storm.

'We're outside the hold where the heavy equipment is stored and maintained.'

Watching over the Doctor's shoulder, Bains suddenly realised that one of the chopper's plasma missiles was being armed and aimed. The comp system informed the Doctor that the area was safe, and that no personnel had been detected in the immediate vicinity.

'What the h.e.l.l are you playing at?' Bains demanded.

'Getting us in,' the Doctor said, glancing back with a smile while he shot off the missile and the wall of the hold exploded in a blast of glittering metal and fire.

Then they were moving. Plunging through the flaming hole, the chopper swooped low, a metre or so off the ground, and Bains ducked when he saw the beams and walkways skimming over the top of them. Then Bains saw the small blue box ahead, and the half a dozen armed guards around it. They were levelling their rifles as the Doctor touched down in front of the box. The chopper searchlights flared and the troops were blinded and confused. As the door buzzed open the Doctor let off a round of sh.e.l.ls that sprayed harmlessly into the distance but caused so much racket that the troops were sent diving for cover.

In no time he was out at the blue box and Bains saw the door swing open.

The children were moving fast, diving into the gap that had opened up. Was this the Doctor's sanctuary? Was this man completely bonkers?

The Doctor was yelling at him to get a move on, and Bains stumbled out of the chopper as the first shots were fired by the surrounding guards. Diving for cover into the dark opening, Bains was utterly perplexed when he arrived in a wide-open s.p.a.ce that seemed to be the interior of a completely different city.

'This is impossible,' Bains gasped.

'That's what they all say,' the Doctor shouted, dashing past him to pull a lever on a mushroom-like control console in the centre of the room.

208.What had been a thin wooden door was actually a pair of st.u.r.dy white doors from this side, and they swung shut at the Doctor's command with an electronic warbling sound.

Ayla was drinking tea in the kitchen when she heard the commotion outside.

Returning to the control room, she found the place suddenly populated by a strange mix of people. A man in torn shirtsleeves was checking the instrument panels on the central console, while another, older man was wandering about the perimeter of the room looking as baffled as she'd been when she first came in, and then there were children everywhere.

And then she saw them properly. Children, yes. But very odd children indeed 'Can I help you?' The man in torn shirtsleeves was gazing at her in astonishment.

'I was just about to ask you the same thing,' Ayla said.